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2.

Nov 5th . 17th having been 12 days on the road.

Upon reaching Markova we found the natives very despendent, and much alarmed about procuring food for the coming winter. During the last summer very few fish appeared in the Anadyr and as fish are their chief dependence for food, for both themselves and dogs, they would undoubtly have to undergo some privations if not great suffering. Already though only at the commencement of winter many of the poorer inhabitants were living upon their deerskin beds, which they boil and make into soup, and their starved dogs were prowling about eating the carcasses of other dogs that had died from starvation, or from a disease that prevailed among them during the Autumn Months and swept off nearly 2/3 of all the dogs throughout this section of the country.

Every 4 or 5 years fish fail in the same manner, when they manage to get through the winter